


Tomorrow Never Knows

by StillTryingToFly



Series: How Four and Seven Learn To Love Themselves And Stop The Apocalypse [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, But only as bad as it was in the show, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus is a supportive brother, Klaus is pansexual, POV Multiple, Podfic Welcome, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding, Siblings fight, Slow Build, The Handler is tired of this shit, Time Travel, Torture, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Vanya Hargreeves is a lesbian, Vanya discovers her powers, and then we feel guilty and get the apology over as quickly as we can, mostly on accident, sorry I don't make the rules - Freeform, stopping the apocalypse, we know where the vulnerable spots are and we go for them without mercy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 21:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18126638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillTryingToFly/pseuds/StillTryingToFly
Summary: Canon divergent AU where Hazel abducts both Vanya and Klaus after the fight at the Academy, and they accidentally escape into the Vietnam War together. Without her medicine to numb her or Leonard to whisper poison in her ear how will Vanya come to view her powers? Also for the first time since Five left Vanya really feels connected to one of her siblings. Is it crazy to feel more at home in a warzone than her childhood home? Also do they really want to go back?





	1. Who the hell are these people?!

**Author's Note:**

> So I had the idea to write this while reading someone else's fic and this popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone so here is whatever this turns out to be. First chapter is super short but I promise they'll get longer. I have the outline of this planned out and it going to be the longest fanfiction I've ever written and definately more plot centered than most of my usual stuff.

Considering the epic fight in the mansion he'd barely survived it was almost pathetic how easy it was for Hazel to kidnap two of Five’s compatriots, whoever these weirdos were. The skinny junkie in the towel had headphones on during a firefight for goodness sake! The short one at least tried to scream for help before Hazel had smashed the butt of his gun against her temple and she crumpled like a puppet with her strings cut. It was a tight fit, squeezing them both in the trunk of the tiny car but the woman was the size of a child and the guy was flexible enough to fit into the compact space with her.

Hazel quickly and efficiently bound and gagged both of his captives with duct tape before slamming the trunk shut. He needed to get back to the motel to meet up with Cha-Cha, but first he needed something to eat. Luckily for him the lovely Agnes kept Griddy’s open late because right now the very thought of a jelly donut called to him almost as strongly as Agnes herself.

Fortified with sweetness (Agnes) and sugar (the donut) Hazel went back to the motel turned one the bed vibrations and plopped himself down to watch bad late night television while he waited for Cha-Cha to show up. Cha-Cha was less than thrilled.

"Where the hell were you?!"

"When you didn't come out I figured we'd just regroup here."

“And you stopped...to get a jelly donut?”

Hazel _so_ does not need Cha-Cha’s judgement tonight.

“Maybe.”

“After everything we just went through?!”

Well, _yeah_ . Who _wouldn’t_ need junk food after a night like tonight.

“Well I needed some comfort food after that disaster.”

Cha-Cha dropped onto the other bed her hand still curled inside the ice bucket.

“Well, tonight’s a total loss.”

Hazel considered that for a moment before cocking his head to the side.

“Well, I’m not so sure about that.”

Cha-Cha frowned, “What are you talking about?”

For the first time since they left the mansion Hazel smiled, it was barely a twitch of the lips but it was there. Heaving himself off the bed he snagged his jacket from where he’d left it flung across the dresser and headed for the door. He turned to look at Cha-Cha who was still on the bed.

“You might wanna grab your mask for this.”

The car was parked on the far side of the narrow lot from their room so it would be easy to watch from their window. As they walked towards it Hazel and Cha-Cha put on their masks and Hazel pulled out the keys. As soon as the trunk was open both of the captives eyes widened at the sight of them, but while the woman shrank back on herself the man started screaming behind his gag.

“See,” Hazel turned his head to look at Cha-Cha. “Not a total loss.”

 

The Umbrella Academy

 

Allison was standing at the kitchen sink wrapping ice into a dishcloth when Diego stalked in.

“Where’s Vanya? I haven’t seen her since those freaks in masks dropped the chandelier on Luther.”

Allison paused with the ice pack halfway to her ribs and stared at Diego in horror.

“She’s not with you?”

“No, I thought she was hiding down here.”

There was a brief pause as they both came to the same conclusion.

“ _S_ _hit!_ ”


	2. What the hell is wrong with these people?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m not straying too far from canon yet, this is more like the small pebbles that cause a rockslide if you what to get metaphorical with it. But there are some small changes and I need to set some things up for plot points later on in the story, but don’t worry, as soon as Klaus and Vanya escape there will be more major changes.

**Three and One**

Allison Hargreeves (mother, movie star, and former child vigilante) was seriously considering liberating some of her father’s expensive brandy from the cabinets and starting her drinking early. Crazy people in rubber masks had invaded her childhood home, killed her mother, and kidnapped _two_ of her siblings. (And hadn’t _that_ been a wonderful realization. She and Diego had searched the entire academy looking for Vanya before they realized Klaus’s clothes were still in his room but the man was nowhere to be found.) Five was still AWOL and Luther... well to be honest Luther made Allison consider substance abuse more than anything else going on at the moment.

“You did hear me right? You haven’t suddenly gone deaf have you?”

Luther shook his head, “I heard you, but seriously? Yeah those two last night were after Five alright, but why would they take Vanya? Or Klaus? Are we even sure they have Klaus? Maybe he just wandered off.”

Allison closed her eyes and had to very sternly tell herself not to hit Luther upside his head for saying something _that_ stupid; he’d had a long night too.

“Naked?!”

_Because seriously? Seriously, Luther?_

Luther shrugged and started walking away. “Maybe he stole another one of your skirts.”

Allison had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming.

_Why them? Why was it always them?_

 

 

**Four and Seven**

Vanya Hargreeves (violinist, clueless lesbian, and the apocalypse waiting to happen) was shaking, her limbs vibrating like the strings of her violin and her heart beating harshly inside her chest: all the beginning stages of what she was sure was going to be an impressive meltdown.

She could count on her hands the number of anxiety attacks she’d had in the past twenty years. A truly impressive track record that she had always attributed to her strict regimen of medication. She had been warned severely by her father, and more gently but no less firmly reminded by Pogo and her mom that if she ever forgot to take her pills she would be putting herself at a terrible risk. It had been more than ten hours since her last dose, and despite the tremblings of her limbs and the panic clawing its way up her throat she could very clearly picture her father’s disapproving scowl leveled in her direction. That she hadn’t been able to take her pill as a consequence of being abducted by lunatics, bound to a chair, and then tortured for ten hours would have been considered a flimsy excuse in the eyes of Reginald Hargreeves.

_The colossal prick._

So far she’d managed to freeze up like a rabbit caught by a hawk while they’d tried to get information about Five out of her. She was having a hard time focusing on anything, even her own body and had been so out of it when the angry lady started playing with the knives that she’d barely noticed the cuts running vertically up her arms. Not like she could have told them much even if she’d been so inclined, why would anyone tell Ordinary Vanya anything important anyway?

At the moment her own issues would have to take a backseat; after the last round of blows to the head and shallow cuts to her neck and face the heavyset man had slapped some duct tape over her mouth and he and his partner had moved back to Klaus. The angry woman had apparently abandoned blunt force trauma as an interrogation technique and moved on to a garrote. However...

“Number Five, where is he?!”

“Don’t,” Klaus rasped. “Stop...I’m almost there.” The moan at the end was quiet but Vanya was sure she was going to spend the rest of her life wishing she hadn’t heard it. The angry woman’s face shifted from irritation to confused disgust.

“Is that a..?” She trailed off in confusion as the man got off the bed and looked over Klaus’s shoulder.

“Yep.”

The woman threw her hands up in disgust and to Vanya’s immense relief let the garrote fall away from Klaus’s neck and he began coughing and taking in gasping breaths of air. And since he could now breathe Klaus did what he always did when he was scared or upset, he deflected with inappropriate humor.

He groaned and shook himself out as much as he could with his arms still bound to a chair. “Ah, there’s nothin’ like a little... stranglin’ to get the blood flowin’, am I right?” His joking tone petered off into a manic laugh.

If he was aiming for humor Vanya would have been more convinced if he hadn’t been shaking worse than she was, and apparently all his little performance had done was irritate the man because he’d got up and smacked the side of Klaus’s head. Again.

“What is so funny, you asshole?”

“Well, for one,” Klaus started slowly as if he were explaining something simple to a child, “You spent the last ten hours... beating us senseless.” Klaus glanced over to Vanya who tried to give him a reassuring look despite the bindings. “And you’ve learned absolutely nothing.” He started laughing again. “I mean, nobody tells us shit. The truth is, we’re the only people in that house nobody will even notice is gone. You assholes kidnapped the wrong guys!” He dissolved once more into helpless laughter before the man lost his temper and smacked him again.

“Please make him stop talking!”

Vanya winced when she heard the man’s hand connect with Klaus’s head; his ears had started bleeding hours ago, and if it got worse she was worried Klaus might up with a serious head injury.

“I’m sorry ok?”

Vanya frowned, maybe he already had a serious head injury if he was apologizing the people who were _torturing_ them.

“Let’s waterboard him.”

 _Seriously,_ Vanya thought with horrified detachment as her captors started pouring water over her brother’s face. _What the hell was wrong with these people?_

Somewhere between physical exercise and honing powers they had all been given lessons on withstanding torture, even ordinary Vanya had had those lessons. Vanya had never felt grateful for that before now, but seeing Klaus slurp up some water from the rag thrown over his face did make her feel...not proud exactly, but watching their tormentor storm off in confused anger after Klaus thanked them for waterboarding him was oddly satisfying.

 

 

**Hazel and Cha-Cha**

Cha-Cha (no last name, temporal assassin, surprisingly skilled dancer) followed Hazel into the dingy ensuite bathroom and barely held back a wince; she could feel it already, Hazel hadn’t even opened his mouth yet but his urge to complain was so palpable she’d be surprised if the freaks ties to the chair in the bedroom didn’t feel it.

“Oh _god_ , this is brutal! What the hell is wrong with those people?”

_No, please don’t._

Hazel looked beseechingly at Cha-Cha as he turned the tap on the tiny sink.

_God give me strength._

“They’re freaks like their brother.”

“So is everyone else in that house. I’m telling you that whole family is messed up. Just another example of management sticking it to the working man.”

_Spare me the lecture._

“Oh come on, not this again.”

Hazel shook his head as he sat down on the edge of the bathtub. “They should’ve warned us this was an atypical assignment! Hello? Hazard pay?”

“Come on, we do the job and we move on to the next one. Just like we always do.” Cha-Cha paused thinking quickly; if she wasn’t careful this could turn into a twenty minute bitchfest about how socialism had the right idea, _again_. But if she played her cards right and got Hazel in the right mood he might be more willing to get the info out of their marks. “Remember Trinidad? We worked that guy solid, for what? Two days, two nights?”

Hazel gave her a begrudging smile as he shrugs. “How could I forget Trinidad?”

_BINGO. That’s it Hazel think happy thoughts!_

“Atta-boy! Let’s go!” And cue the Hallelujah chorus; he actually gets up and starts psyching himself up to go back into the bedroom and deal with their two problem captives.

 

 

**Diego and Eudora**

Diego Hargreeves (bisexual disaster, knife enthusiast, current vigilante) was sprawled across Eudora Patch’s front steps like a sad stray dog wanting affection. That had not been his original plan. He had intended to ask Eudora for her help like an actual adult human being, but like everyone else he knew with the last name Hargreeves he just... _could not do that._ If one of them was bleeding out it would be easier to faint from blood loss than ask for a compress.

The whole drive over he had been rehearsing what he was going to say, trying to think of the best way to explain the insane situation his family was in to someone whose life was blissfully normal. And how was he supposed to explain this to her anyway? _Oh by the way Eudora, one of my brothers is a time traveler who has assassins after him and they are the ones who have been shooting town up the past few days and last night they broke into our childhood home almost killed us all and kidnapped two of my other siblings can you you help me find them because my family might drive me insane but the idea that they are in danger is unacceptable._ Because that sounded like something a crackhead would say, never mind the fact that it was true.

So instead of just ringing her doorbell like a functioning adult, he was laying down across her steps making it impossible for her to get to her car without stepping over him.

“What the hell?”

_Success._

“Who’d you piss of this time?”

“Oh, I gave it as good as I got.”

Eudora scoffed, “You didn’t answer my question.” And because she was apparently feeling very merciful she handed him her travel mug as he sat up.

Diego could have cried, “Oh yes. How’s all that paperwork coming along?”

He sounded so pathetic Eudora decided to humor him. “Its a real page-turner. I’ve got two guys in children’s masks, rare bullet casings, a random fingerprint from a 1930’s cold case, and...I just learned that the tow truck driver from the doughnut shop didn’t have any family.”

“The Boy,” Diego said as about three pieces of information fell into place for Diego. Five was going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do once Diego got his hands on him.

“Not his, apparently. Kid’s our only possible witness and he’s a complete mystery.”

_Oh she had no idea._

“Okay, what’s going on?”

Diego froze, “What?” _Oh crap how’d she know?_

Eudora gave him an unimpressed look and folded her arms across her chest, “You could have called me for an update. So why are you really here?”

_And there it was: the perfect opening for him to explain the situation and ask for help; all he needed to do was get the words out of his mouth._

“I just... I don’t know how to...”

_Oh for heaven’s sake._

Diego tried again. “My mom died last night.”

_Well, that hadn’t been what he’d come here to tell her, but it was a step in the right direction._

Eudora’s unimpressed mask dissolved into genuine concern. “Shit. Diego, I’m so sorry.”

Diego shook his head, he couldn’t afford to get stuck in his grief now, he had to do this now, he had to tell her because he couldn’t do this alone. He was going to need help if he was going to find Five and Vanya and Klaus.

Eudora put a comforting hand on his elbow. “Hey, hey. Tell me what’s going on. Who did this?”

Diego let out a shaky breath, “Let’s just say I didn’t get a good look at their faces.”

Eudora frowned, “You went after the guys in the masks, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t go after them. And one’s a woman...by the way, so stop being so sexist.”

_Nicely done, deflecting with humor. I’m sure no one saw through that._

“I specifically told you not to follow them.”

Diego was shaking his head before she’d even finished speaking. “No, they came to my house, looking for my brother. And when they couldn’t find him they took Vanya and Klaus, they tried to kill my family and now they have two of them and I have no idea where they are!”

“Wait-wait slow down. My suspects from the diner shootout and the department store kidnapped two of your siblings last night, and you waited till now to tell me?”

Diego shuddered before he turned to look her in the eye. “I need help Eudora. I don’t know why they want Five but they were willing to kill us to get to him and you saw what they did to that tow truck driver and he wasn’t even related to us. What do you think they are doing to my siblings?”

Eudora Patch considered the question for just over one second before she stood up. “We need to go to the station. _Now_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is probably the most ambitious fanfiction I’ve ever attempted but the idea just would not leave me be. I admire people who write long plot driven fanfictions but I usually lack the motivation and time to write them myself. This will be something of an experiment for me, I want to see if I can follow through with my ideas for this without giving up part way through. I just got promoted at work so I’ve got a full time job with a lot of responsibility and not a lot of time to write so this will be updated over a long period of time but comments are so helpful in motivating me. So any and all feedback is appreciated and try to be patient with me. If you want to hear me scream into the void I am the-rainbow-spoon-incident2 on Tumblr.


	3. Once More, But Slightly To The Left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost to the meat of this story, almost but not just yet. If you have any questions come yell at me on Tumblr. the-rainbow-spoon-incident2

**Number Five**

Five Hargreeves (renegade temporal assassin, coffee addict, and high functioning basket case) was laying in wait for Lance Biggs. Five planned to ambush the MeriTech exec as soon as the idiot got into his car so he could threaten the information he needed out of him. He just needed the bastard to actually show up _before the end of the freaking world!_ Oh god, he hated not having Delores with him, but she’d told him she wasn’t equipped for a stealth mission, and she’d been right as usual. Still, as soon as he found out who this eye belonged to and removed them from the equation he’d make sure to celebrate with her properly.

When the man finally turns up he’d holding a dog to his chest and moves to put the animal in the backseat of the car. Five bounces on the balls of his feet; he had to time this perfectly if he was going to pull this off. As soon as Biggs was opening the driver’s side door Five punched his way through space so he was sitting in the front passenger seat, the dog started barking as soon as he appeared. The dog was clearly smarter than his human who didn’t notice Five sitting beside him until he’d already closed the door.

 _Idiot_ Five thought before pulling out a knife he’d borrowed from the Academy’s training room and shoving it against Biggs's neck.

“ _One_ chance. That’s all you’ve got.” Five made sure to let all his frustration and anger bleed into his voice, he looked young but he was far from harmless and this idiot was standing between Five and a way to protect his siblings. “ _One_ chance to tell me exactly what’s going on in that lab.”

Biggs looks like he’s moments away from peeing himself in terror. His eyes are open wife and unblinking and he’s shaking a little bit too.

“I...I manufacture prosthetic devices for fake patients. I bill the insurance companies and sell them for cash on the black market.”

“Including eyeballs?”

“Yeah, they’re my biggest seller. I mean, they sell like hotcakes. I--I’ve got a list, a waiting list, probably twenty buyers.”

They were finally getting somewhere. “So, the serial number I told you...”

“Uh, could’ve already been bought. Yes, off--off the books.”

“I need that list, Lance. Names and numbers and I need it now!”

“I don’t have it, I mean, not on me. The only copy’s in my safe at the lab.”

Disappointing news, but Five believed him; the man had been almost tripping over his words in an effort to confess as quickly as he could. He wouldn’t lie if the lie meant spending more time around Five.

“Well, start the car then,” he said with a smile. “Cause we’re going on a field trip!” Five presses the knife against his neck one more time in warning before he pulls away. “Now!”

“Okay, “ Lance says, already reaching for his keys.

Finally something was going his way.

 

**One, Three, and Pogo**

Luther Hargreeves (astronaut, Golden Child of a narcissistic father, desperately trying to keep it together) was going through number Five’s childhood bedroom looking for any clue as to where he’d disappeared to. It wasn’t going well.

“Like I said, master Luther, Number Five hasn’t lived in this room since he was a boy,” Pogo said tiredly not really expecting Luther to listen to him.

“Yeah I know, but we need to warn him. He doesn’t even know we were attacked. He doesn’t know they’re looking for him, he doesn’t know--”  

“What are you really doing in here, Luther?” Allison spoke from the doorway her arms crossed over her chest.

“You know Five didn’t leave anything in here. We have no leads on Vanya or Klaus, no idea who those freaks in the masks even are or what they want with Five, I need you to get over this whole obsession with dad and focus on our siblings who need us.”

“Allison--,” Luther began but Allison waved him off.

“Enough, Klaus said something about a van at the family meeting. Was that metaphorical van or...?”

“Five was watching this prosthetics facility the other day, hiding out in a van. We can go check it out see if her left any clues.”

Allison nodded, “That makes more sense than poking around his childhood bedroom.”  She turned and started heading for the stairs. “Do you know why he’s watching a prosthetics lab?”

“Not really,” Luther said as he grabbed to keys to the car from their hook on the wall. “But if we find him we can ask.”

 

**Four, Six, and Seven**

Klaus Hargreeves (medium, junkie, sometime sex worker) was tied to a chair next to his sister, and shaking with the strains of withdrawal while attempting to ignore the dead Russian broad staring out the window muttering to herself.

“Klaus, are you okay?” Considering that Vanya looked like she’d been run over by a truck and thrown into a pool filled with piranhas and she was asking about him spoke to how badly he had to look at the moment.

“Oh, I’m just dandy,” he said sarcastically waving his hand the little his restraints allowed him to move. “Thank you for asking sister dear. How are you?”

Vanya just twitched her lips and shrugged. Leaning against the chest of drawers Ben just raised an eyebrow at his blatant deflecting. Behind them Klaus could hear the guys in masks talking to each other in low voices.

“Maybe your not hitting him hard enough?”

“Me?! You’re the one with the stupid orthopedic bracelet!”

“I told you already, it's just for support!”

Truly thrilling conversationalists those two. However he’d take them over the Russian lady who hadn’t stopped bitching to herself since she’d showed up.

“Withdrawal...it’s starting now, isn’t it? Must be. Otherwise, who’s the dead babushka?”

_Brilliant insight Ben. Really, thank you for your input._

“I don’t know, but it's driving me crazy! The bitch won’t shut up!”

“Klaus?” Vanya looked at him, eyes wide with concern.

“Hey watch your mouth!” The pudgy guy called over his shoulder. “What did I say about eyes front?”

“Stay calm, Klaus.”

“Seriously Klaus are you alright?”

“Oh god, will all of you please _shut up?!”_  Klaus hissed under his breath “I know you’re trying to help but I can’t take the mother henning from both of you at the same time.”

“Both... of us? What do you--,” Vanya suddenly stopped mid word, her eyes were suddenly wide and hopeful. “Klaus,” and her voice was fragile now in a way it hadn’t been while she was being tortured. “Can you see Ben?”

Klaus’s eye flicked up to where Ben was standing looking surprised. “She caught on quick. Tell her I’m here; she might actually believe you.”

“That’d be a first,” he muttered darkly before he looked at Vanya and nodded. “Can’t seem to get rid of him even when I’m as high as a kite.”

Vanya’s eyes darted around like she was looking for Ben when she suddenly froze. Oh great, the masks were back on and this time the weirdos were going through his coat.

“Wait,wait,wait, wait,wait,” he said in a placating tone. Why did they have to go through his stuff? Sure, they were going through Vanya’s hoodie as well, but his coat had fun drugs, hers didn’t.

“Let’s see what’s in here,” the woman murmured as she started going through his pockets.

“What are you doing? That’s mine. That’s my personal stuff.”

“Oh what do we have here?” She sounded happy, that couldn’t be good.

“Let me see that,” the man said and the woman tossed him the baggie she’d pulled out of his pocket.

“Hey, no no no no, be--be careful with that. It’s--it’s my...asthma medication.”

Vanya and Ben managed to do synchronized eyebrows of judgement with that one.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” the big guy said before he poured out the pills and started stomping them into the carpet.

“Hey, no hey! Woah! No, hey hold on! Hold on! We can have a conversation. We’re adults.”

“Klaus!” Vanya hissed.

“Oh, you want more?” And again with the stomping of the pills.

“No! NO! No no no! Stop! Stop! Please listen! Listen, I can...I can get you cash. Amputee hookers, whatever. ”

“Seriously, Klaus?”

“Hey just, please, just listen. Just don’t... no...please...” Klaus trailed off as the big guy broke off a piece of his chocolate edible he’d had in his pocket.

“Chocolate. Mm-mm-mm!”

“Please,” he whispered even as Vanya was giving him a disapproving side eye.

“You want a piece?” The guy asked his partner, at least Klaus assumed he was offering it to his partner; he didn’t seem polite enough to offer any to Klaus and Vanya but it was hard to tell where he was looking with that mask on.

“You going to tell them that its special chocolate?” Ben asked with more judgement than Klaus really felt the edible deserved. It was just pot, if anyone was going to judge anything shouldn’t it be the hard stuff? Anyway...

“Not until they’re high as kites,” Klaus tried to chuckle but it got caught somewhere in his chest and became a shudder and a wince.

“Klaus?”

“Klaus, be strong.”

Oh great, the familial concern was annoying enough when it was just Ben, having Vanya doing it at the same time was going to be intolerable.

“This could all be yours for the low low price of telling us everything,” the angry lady said as she waved his chocolate bar in front of his face.

“Okay, fine,” he whispered.

“Klaus!”

Klaus cried, he’d tried okay but he was scared and in pain and Five could take care of himself. “Okay I don’t... I don’t know where Five is. I wasn’t lying about that. But I can tell you that he’s... hasn’t--hasn’t been making, much sense since he got back.”

“Elaborate.”

“I...uh...he’s just... he’s been acting like a-a-a lunatic! He’s been sitting in this van in front of a--a lab...or something, and looking for the owner of an eyeball. One of those fake ones.”

Klaus could hear Vanya mutter under her breath,“What the fuck?”

“That makes no sense.”

“Hold on, just hold on. Tell us more about this eye, and why is it so important?”

“He said it had something to do with the end of times, or something.”

About ten months down the line Klaus would think that it was very telling that his captors never once asked a question about the Apocalypse his brother was so obsessed with.

 

**Three and One**

Allison had learned how to pick locks six years before for a movie where she played a cat burglar. Her character was a damaged young woman who used her beauty and charm to cover the vulnerable parts of herself. It had been one of the easiest roles she had ever portrayed. She was sure her therapist would have a field day with that if she ever admitted it out loud, so she intended to keep it to herself and use the her lock picking skills to open the van Five had been using to spy on MeriTech.

“I’ll take the front,” Luther said as soon as she had the door open. With his shoulders it was going to be a tight squeeze but whatever; no skin off her nose.

She slid the side door open and hopped into the back and began rooting through Five’s things. From the looks of things Five had never outgrown his tendency to jot down his thoughts onto whatever paper he had in front of his face at the time the thought crossed his mind. Including apparently, Vanya’s book.

From the sounds of thing from the front seat Luther wasn’t having any luck. Flipping the pages of her sister’s book to the dedication page, on it was stamped with public library Argyle street branch. Allison couldn’t help but smile, Five in a library, whoever would have guessed it? She whistled for Luther’s attention and held up the book.

“Luther, I think I know where to find Five.”

 

**Number Five**

As soon as he saw the smoke Five knew that all his plans had gone up in flames along with the lab. And yet, despite this, he still ran towards the flames, only to be thrown back.

 

**Eudora and Diego**

Eudora Patch (detective, terrible cook, and certified badass) listened to the dispatcher on the other end of the phone and weighed the odds of this weird shit having nothing to do with all the other weird shit going on, and decided to take Diego Hargreeves with her to the scene of a lab explosion. She didn’t know it, but that decision would end up saving her life.


	4. The Hargreeves Play The Worst Game of Hide And Seek Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Man on the Moon" but its the remix!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this chapter got away from me somewhat. It was supposed to be 1500 words just summing up the differences from the show but I didn't like it so I scrapped it and started over. I'm still not totally thrilled with this chapter but honestly I'm tired of looking at it so I'm going to post it anyway.

**Four, Six, and Seven**

Klaus Hargreeves was having flashbacks of the mausoleum where he’d had specialized training as a child. It happened sometimes, if he was too close to sober to keep the ghosts away and the space he was in was too small (like a fucking closet). And all of a sudden the years would melt away and he was a child again, cowering in a corner, screaming to be left alone, begging Reginald to let him out.

“Klaus. Klaus.” Ben’s voice finally broke through the wailing in his head and Klaus’s own muffled screams petered out. Vanya was bound to her own chair facing him, her brown eyes wide with concern. She was also making soft noises around her gag but hers were quieter than his, consistent and far more gentle.

_Oh, she’s trying to calm me down. That’s actually really sweet._

“Breathe. You’re in the worst of it now. Just try and stay calm.”

 _Oh sure, easy enough to say when you’re already dead._ Klaus shuddered violently and struggled not to cry. He wasn’t sure what was worse, the withdrawal or the torture, or the ghosts.

All of a sudden a vacuum cleaner turned on. Klaus’s eyes flew open in shock and he met Vanya’s eyes and watched her as they both came to the same conclusion. There was a housekeeper. In the motel room. Where they were being held hostage. If they could get her attention she might free them, or at the very least call the cops. They both started screaming at the same moment.

Unfortunately the vacuum cleaner never stopped and it didn’t take a genius to realize the housekeeper couldn’t hear them.

“She can’t hear you.”

_Oh thank you so much for that brilliant insight Ben, truly a remarkable deduction._

Klaus kept screaming anyway just to be contrary, Vanya couldn’t hear Ben’s comment and kept going in desperation.

“You know what the worst part about being dead is?”

_No Ben, I sure don’t. Why don’t you tell me._

“You’re stuck. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to change. That’s the real torture, if you gotta know. Watching your brother take for granted everything you lost and pissing it all away.”

Klaus couldn’t help it, even when his nerves weren’t shot to hell, that disapproving tone from Ben always made him feel small and inadequate. He started sniffling, trying to hold back his tears, when something he hadn’t been expecting at all happened.

Vanya, who had been watching Klaus with mounting concern suddenly started scooting her chair forward a few centimeters at time until she was able to press her bare foot against Klaus’s leg. As a child he’d liked to hold people’s hands, a confirmation that they were alive and well. It seemed like Vanya had remembered that and given him what little support she could. Physical contact, a reminder that no matter how shitty this situation was, he wasn’t doing this alone.

_How unexpected._

**Patch and Hargreeves**

Eudora Patch had cited conflict of interest and passed Diego off to an officer she trusted to explain about the break-in at his childhood home. She had been observing from a distance as her ex-boyfriend was giving his witness statement when her phone rang. She had listened as dispatch had relayed what they knew: fire at a prosthetics lab, possible explosion but no deaths as is was closed for the day. It was just weird enough that she waiting for Diego to finish before actually heading out.

“If I bring you with me to a crime scene, do you promise to behave yourself?” It was a dumb question, she knew that; he could never behave himself.

Diego cocked his head to the side, looking for all the world like a curious puppy. “Where are we going?”

The first few minutes on the scene had actually gone well; there were no bodies and structural damage had been minimal so the crime scene crew had actually already gone in to retrieve evidence before she’d even pulled up to the scene. A uniform was handling the interview of one of the lab’s executives and so she’d been free to look over what had been pulled from where the blaze had started. Oh, and she’d left Diego in the car. He had been quite put out, but she’d told him if she found anything that related to the other cases she would come get him.

Detective Beaman looked up from where he had been fiddling with a prosthetic arm when she walked over.

“It’s creepy, huh?” Gesturing to the arm he was still holding.

“That’s the understatement of the year,” she said as she turned to look over the other things on the cart in front of her. “Did you find anything?”

“Well the fire inspector says that the speed of the blaze indicates that an accelerant was used. Oh, and uh, we... found this,” Beaman picked up a tray as he spoke, indicating the single item on it. A slender piece of black leathery fabric? Suddenly she remembered Diego’s description of the woman’s mask, bubblegum pink with long floppy black ears.

She had wondered on the drive over if she was being paranoid because of what Diego had told her had happened to him and his siblings last night, but here at last might be proof that these cases _were_ connected.

“Get that over to the lab immediately. I’ll be right back, I’m going to tell Diego that this might be connected with his home invaders from last night.”

Beaman pursed his lips at the mention of Diego but he knew better than to say anything about it. She had almost made it back to her car when she realized that Diego was no longer sitting in the passenger seat. Swallowing back the immediate impulse to hunt him down and hit him on the head with something, she looked around and was relieved to see him standing not far from the car and on the correct side of the crime scene tape. He was actually facing _away_ from her crime scene she realized with some confusion. What was he doing now?

Later, after everything else that would happen that day, Eudora would wonder what it was about the van that had bothered Diego; at the time he hadn’t known his brother had been using it as a base of operations to spy on MeriTech, hadn’t even known MeriTech was involved. In the end it didn’t matter; in the end Detective Patch and Diego Hargreeves got the message two assassins had left for Number Five.

“Your siblings say hi!” Written into the ashes on top of the windshield of a stolen van. Along with a matchbook from the Luna Motor Lodge Motel wedged underneath the wipers.

She sighed deeply, explaining this to her captain was not going to be fun.

**One, Three, Five, and Delores**

Allison Hargreeves hadn’t been to the Argyle Street library in almost twenty years but nothing about it had really changed in the intervening years. It had five levels (if you counted the basement) and was shaped like a giant donut and each level where she didn't find her brother started to weigh on her. Maybe this place meant nothing to Five after all, maybe he’d just found Vanya’s book here in the future and kept it.

Finding Five on the top floor was a relief. Finding him passed out surrounded by his wall scribblings, multiple notebooks, two empty bottles of vodka, and cuddling (of all things) a bald mannequin was _less_ of a relief.

Luther came up behind her and took in the tableau.

“Is he, um...?”

“Trashed? Yep!” Allison could feel hysteria settling in. Klaus and Vanya were still being held captive by those lunatics, who knew where Diego had fucked off to, and Five was as drunk as a skunk in a library. Perfect.

**Four, Six, and Seven**

They must have passed out at some point in the afternoon because when the closet door opens again the sunlight streaming in from the window is gone and all the lamps have been turned on.

“Oh my god, they’re still here.”

_Where the fuck did he think they were going to be running off to while bound to chairs?_

“Hi,” the man says before grabbing Klaus’s chair and dragging it into the middle of the room again.

_Oh for the love of all that is holy, what more do these psychos want?_

The angry lady grabbed the back of Vanya’s chair and pulled it along until she was sitting next to Klaus facing both of their captors. Vanya could feel resentment bubbling inside her and was fully prepared to give these people the silent treatment but Klaus, almost immediately began speaking through his gag.

“What’s he saying?”

The woman pursed her lips at her partner’s question but stepped forward to rip the duct tape of Klaus’s mouth.

“What are you sayin’?”

“You guys are scarier without the masks,” Klaus slurred out his advice and tapered off into a chuckle.

Vanya closed her eyes; if they ever got out of this situation alive she and Klaus were going to have a discussion about unhealthy coping mechanisms and running his mouth when people who hated him had him tied to a chair at their mercy.

Unsurprisingly the woman backhanded him.

The man adopted a genial tone and put his hands in his pockets. “That’s no way to say hello to your old friends, is it?”

Klaus’s voice was high and breathy when he replied, “Can’t we call it a night? I already gave you what you wanted. Just, please...please let us go. Please.”

“Well technically we want your brother. Is your brother here now?”

Klaus glanced off to the side where Ben must have been standing because he turned back and said, “You're gonna have to be a little more specific on that.”

The woman backhanded him again when he started chuckling. All right enough was enough, Vanya started  speaking through her gag even as Klaus kept talking.

“Ow! I told you already. He’s not coming. No one will.”

The man frowns but does lean over to take off Vanya’s gag. She has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from gasping when the tape pulls at her skin.

“He’s not lying!” She knew this was going to sound pathetic but it was true. “We haven’t seen each other in over a decade, they’re not going to come to our rescue even if they happen to notice we’re missing!”

“Well Number Five knows now. We left him a message. And when he come for you two we’ll be ready.”

Klaus let out a breathy sound of disbelief but didn’t argue farther, and with that they were turned to face the windows and the assassins started turning off the lights. Vanya was ashamed to admit that it had taken a whole day of Klaus whimpering and crying to remember how much he’d hated the dark as a child.

He’d started whimpering and under his breath a steady stream of whispered ‘nononono’ could be heard. His breathing had become little more than shuddering gasps when all of a sudden something seemed to get his attention and he closed his eyes in irritation, not fright.

“Klaus?” She tried to speak as softly as she could so as not to be overheard by the assassins behind them. Something had changed and Vanya had a pretty good guess what it was.

“Dead Russian grandma keeps bitching nonstop.”

Klaus turned his head in the direction the ghost must be and immediately turned back with a muttered expletive. “Oh jesus, the side of her head is all bashed in V, it's so gross.”

Suddenly his eyes slid off her and fixed on a patch of empty air, no she realized, not empty simply filled with something she could not see. His bearing changed, he seemed to be psyching himself up for something, and then he turned around and addressed the air behind them.

“H-hi! Hi uh... What’s your name?” There is a short pause before he keeps going. “Oh! That’s a lovely name. And can you tell me what happened?”

The assassins don’t seem to appreciate Klaus seemingly talking to this air. “What happened is if you don’t shut up, I’mma cut your tongue out with a grapefruit spoon.”

Klaus doesn't even blink. “Zoya Popova.”

It means nothing to Vanya but the two weirdos actually seem unnerved when Klaus starts describing her. “Old Russian broad, short, with a limp.” Klaus laughed his quiet manic laugh. “Oh, she’s really pissed at you guys!”

Vanya actually smiled, Klaus had interacted with a ghost without being overwhelmed for the first time since before Ben had died. And if there was one ghost following these two around she was willing to bet there would be more.

**Diego and Eudora**

Part of Diego wanted to beat the motel clerk till he talked but there was no way Eudora would let him, and anyway he had a feeling that if his siblings were here, in this motel, the situation would devolve into chaos sooner rather than later. He just had to be here when it did.

**One, Three, Five, and Delores**

Luther carried their brother in his arms as Allison carried the one armed mannequin they had found Five cuddling. Allison had intended to leave it behind but Luther had said it seemed important to Five so they should probably keep it with them. A small part of Allison wondered what they looked like to passersby: a Hollywood actress toting around half a mannequin, a man with the proportions of a cartoon character carrying a drunk teenager in a schoolboy getup (complete with knee socks) bridal style in his massive arms. They’ll probably end up being arrested if anyone saw them and called the cops, or maybe everyone would just assume they were all crazy and try and chuck them in the loony bin. There was also the question of where they were going to go now that they’d found Five.

“Well, we can’t go back to the house. It’s not secure. Those psychopaths could come back at any moment.”

Allison shuffled through her mental list of siblings who still lived in this city. “Do either Vanya or Diego live nearby?”

Luther nodded, “Diego has a place that’s not too far from here. No one will look for us there.”

That was when Five belched loudly and came to. Luther looked down at Five as he blinked sleepily in his arms.

“If you vomit on me...”

“You know what’s funny?” Five asked with an almost hysterical note in his voice. “Aah! I’m going through puberty.” He seems to consider what he has just said and scoffs. “Huh, twice. And I...I drank that whole bottle didn’t I?”

_How had he even get vodka when he looked like that?_

“That’s what you do when the world you love goes bye-bye.” Five waved it off with one hand. “Poof, it’s gone! What are you two talkin’ about?”

“Two masked intruders attacked the academy last night.”

“They were looking for you, but they took Klaus and Vanya as a consolation prize, so I need you to focus. What do-”

“It’s Hazel and Cha-Cha,” Five slurred.

“I hate code names,” Luther muttered darkly.

“Ah, the best of the best. Except for me of course,” Five actually chuckled. Crazy people had their siblings and he was laughing.

“Best of what?”

Because that was the most pressing concern at the moment.

“You know, Delores always said she hated it when I drink. She said it made me surly-”

“Five! We need you to focus! What do this Hazel and Cha-Cha want with Vanya and Klaus?!”

Five’s face darkened. “Hazel and Cha-Cha have Vanya?” Suddenly Five had squirmed his way out of Luther’s arms and prepared to jump. To his credit he _did_ manage to successfully jump, six feet, before he keeled over, vomited, and passed out again.

Allison looked to the sky and tried to keep herself from screaming.

**Four, Six, Seven, and the Assassinated**

Watching her brother talk to the dead people around them was a strange experience. As a child she’d never been part of the group, hadn’t really been around when Klaus would use his powers, and as they’d got older Klaus had started numbing his powers with drugs. She hadn’t considered what it would look like to watch him speak to people she could not see.

Klaus kept jerking his head in different directions every few seconds looking uncomfortable but not overwhelmed or terrified. In fact, the only trouble there seemed to be was that apparently they were all trying to talk at once.

“Just shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up. Everybody just...everybody just shut up, please shut up. Jesus you guys are worse than the drugs.”

Behind them, their captors were talking in low whispers, Vanya ignored them in favor of her brother.

“Just please, one at a time. I...I can’t focus when you’re all talking at once.” He looked up his eyes focusing on the air in front of him. “Really? Tell me, please, and the rest of you just shut up.”

Whoever Klaus was speaking with seemed informative because the furrows in Klaus’s brow relax and he starts to nod as their tormentors make their way over to them.

“Swiss Alps, huh?”

The man grabs the back of Klaus’s chair and swing him around to face them but leaves Vanya were she was facing to the side.

“Which one are you? Cha-Cha or Hazel?”

The man blinked but replied, “Hazel.”

“Jan Mueller. Remember him? Swiss Alps. Him and his wife were coming back from a ski trip.”

Klaus was focused on Hazel but it was the woman, Cha-Cha, who replied.

“I remember. Forward. Reverse!”

_What?_

“Yeah, that’s it! Yeah, and his wife...escaped down an alleyway. He says to say thank you.” Klaus began to laugh, but it was not his manic laugh, this was a ‘I know something you don’t’ laugh that sounded so strange coming from Klaus’s mouth.

“What’s he talking about?” Cha-Cha sounded suspicious and for once her aggression wasn’t focused on Klaus.

“I don’t know.”

Klaus looked up at Hazel and spoke directly to him. “He was so grateful to you, Hazel, for having spared his wife.” Klaus suddenly jerked his head to look at Cha-Cha. “You know, there may be hope for him yet. Don’t you think?”

Silence rang after her brother’s question. Cha-Cha broke it.

“Bathroom, now!”

Klaus and Vanya shared a glance before turning to look at Hazel, who was staring at Klaus like he’d never seen anything quite like him before, before he turned and followed Cha-Cha into the bathroom snapping the door shut behind him.

“That was incredible Klaus!”

“Thank you,” he turned to look at her and then his eye flicked over to the window. “Both of you.”

Vanya turned to where he was looking and smiled too. “Thank you Ben. Thank you for helping him.”

Suddenly Klaus’s face changed from tired satisfaction to confusion to desperate hope.

“Are you sure?” He asked empty air with an almost feral intensity.

“What-” Vanya began to ask but Klaus cut her off with a hiss.

“Ben says Diego is outside. With a cop.”

Vanya blinked. Diego had come to save them. She immediately began scooting her chair towards the window.

“Come on Klaus!” She hissed. “We’re going to have to get their attention if we want to get out of here!”

**Two, Four, Seven, and Eudora**

They were alive. Klaus and Vanya were alive, of this Diego was sure. They had to be alive, they were the bait, so they had to be alive. Diego had told himself this over and over to try and keep his panic down, every muscle in his body tense and ready for a fight, He almost jumped out of his skin when Vanya slammed her head against the window to get his attention.

He and Eudora had been wandering the halls of the motel hoping for any type of clue when a repeated banging came from room 225. Diego had  been ready to kick the door in but Eudora had shown the housekeeper her shield and gotten them a key in less than 10 seconds.

Green light flashed, door swung open, and there they were: Klaus and Vanya bound with duct tape to their chairs.

Eudora went in with her gun drawn to do a quick sweep of the room as Diego hurried over to his siblings.

Vanya’s eyes were wide and terrified, “They’re in the bathroom, hurry we don’t have much time!”

Diego had a knife out and had cut through Klaus’s bonds before Vanya had even finished talking. He’d just cut through Vanya’s bonds wheen the bathroom door opened and Diego didn’t even think just shoved his siblings to the side out of the line of fire and curved a knife into the bathroom in warning.

The guy was good, he did manage to get one round off before Diego’s knife hit his arm.

“Police! Drop the gun, or you’re going down!”

Surprisingly an arm immediately came back into view, the gun pointed harmlessly at the ground. It took Diego a second to realized the woman hadn’t shot at them, which meant she wasn’t in the bathroom. Footsteps moving quickly down the hall let him know he had to move quickly.

Spinning on his heel he was able to curve the knife around the corner and hit the figure moving stealthily down the hallway. Her scream of pain unfortunately seemed to make the big guy change his mind about dropping the gun and start firing again.

Diego turned to look at his siblings and saw that they’d got the grate off the vent and were scurrying inside. Alright, now he and Eudora just had to get out alive. Crouching down he grabbed her hand and led her backwards out of the room still shooting at the guy in the bathroom. Diego checked to make sure the coast was clear before he pulled them into the hallway and they made a run for it.

“What about your siblings?” Eudora asked looking over her shoulder to see if they had been followed.

“They were escaping through the vent. Van knows my address, I gave it to her years ago in case of emergencies they’ll probably head there as soon as they can.”

Eudora looked worried but nodded. “I need to call this in, I know you don’t like getting the police involved in your family business but this is serious Diego. Those lunatics are a danger to everyone, not just your family, we need to know why they are targeting you.”

They’d reached her car. “I’ll drop you off at your place to wait for your siblings but all of you are going to have to come in to make a statement.”

Diego grimaced as he opened the passenger side door, “If I knew why these people were after my family, believe me I’d tell you.”

**Four and Seven**

Klaus had climbed into the vent first pushing a black briefcase ahead of him as he went. Why was there a briefcase in a vent? Who cares? The important thing was that there was a vent big enough for Vanya and Klaus Hargreeves to crawl through. Busting the grate on the other side took less than twenty seconds and then they were in a vacant motel room and running for their lives.

They both must have seen the bus at the same moment because they both made a beeline for it without saying a word to each other. The bus driver looked skeptical about letting them on but Vanya slapped down a crinkled five dollar bill she’d found shoved in the back pocket of her jeans and collapsed on the seats nearest the door. Klaus sat next to her and after checking the windows to make sure they weren’t being followed he started laughing his sad delirious laugh again.

Klaus winked at the woman across the aisle from them who had been taking in Klaus’s towel and trench coat look. At least she seemed to find it charming.

Vanya frowned as Klaus began to fiddle with the clasps on the briefcase.

“Oh! Please be money. Only money.”

“Klaus what are you doing?”

“Hoping for treasure...or diamonds.”

Vanya put her hand on top of the briefcase, “Klaus I don’t know if we should open it.”

“Eh!” Was the only response she got before Klaus clicked open the clasps.

There was a small flash of blue, a zapping sound, and a gust of wind that blew the hat off the woman who had been sitting across from them. It took the woman less than five seconds to pick up her hat and put it back on, but when she turned around the two people across from her were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally here! I can start making my major changes! First stop: Vietnam 1968!


	5. Not In Kansas Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was getting too big so I've split it up into more manageable chunks. I'll go back and edit later. PLEASE READ THE NOTES.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After doing an asston of research on the Vietnam War I decided to have Vanya pretend to be a man, and not act as a nurse or a Red Cross volunteer. Simply because if she filled a role that women did fill in the war, she would be separated from Klaus. Realistically American women were in active combat zones, there were army nurses who lived on the bases in hazardous conditions and I am not trying to diminish what they did, but their story wasn’t the storyline I wanted to pursue for Vanya. I tried to think of any reason a woman would have been allowed to stay with the men as they soldiered and came up with nothing. Especially since this was in the middle of the cold war and Vanya has a Russian name. Just no. So... I decided to plop Klaus and Vanya right at the start of the Tet Offensive and send them to Hue. It is reasonable enough to think that in the chaos that followed there, no one would really notice that Klaus and Vanya weren’t supposed to be there until they were used to them being around.  
> About Rank and Divisions mentioned in this Fic: the scene in the show is short and not very well lit but I could make out some insignia and rank of soldiers. If I was able to see it I went with what was on the show; if I couldn’t see it I made up whatever made sense for my story.

**Dave, Klaus, and Vanya**

**A Shau Valley**

**January 31st, 1968**

  


**Dave**

 

David Katz (draftee, gentle soul, and his parents pride and joy) had been a light sleeper his entire life, able to wake up and immediately be alert to his surroundings. Considering that no matter where you were in this country you had to worry about a V.C. shooting you in the neck and melting back into the jungle, situational awareness and quick reflexes were enviable traits to have. At least that’s what he told himself when the snores of his unit kept him from drifting off, or a chopper whirring overhead woke him after just an hour’s sleep.

So when the blue lightning flashed _inside_ his tent he was awake quickly enough to see it spit out two figures clutching a briefcase between them.

“Dammit!” The figure closer to him swore as they landed in a heap at the foot of Dave’s cot.

_What the fuck._

Dave was vaguely aware that there was a smaller figure hunched over and whimpering behind the first, but most of his focus was on the beautiful man that had appeared wearing nothing but a bloody towel and a non-regulation jacket. The man had looked up as soon as he landed sprawled on the ground and his eyes met Dave’s and his faced morphed from one of pain to one of wide eyed wonder.

_No seriously, what the fuck?_

Dave was trying to think of something to say _(what should one say when an angel in a blood stained towel pops into existence at your feet?_ ) when the world explodes into noise around them.

The tell tale whistling followed by the crash and the of churning earth as the explosion went off nearby was enough to wake everyone else up and throw them into action.

“Incoming!”

_No shit._

The angel covered his ears jerked around to look at his companion who was...a woman. A tiny woman in a white shirt with bloody sleeves.

 _A Red Cross volunteer? Out here? Oh well, no time to worry about that now_ , Dave swung himself out of his cot and reached for his shirt.

“Go time ladies! Charlie’s on the wire!” Sergeant Polansky burst into the tent amidst the flurry of men getting ready to move out.

“Move it! All right?! Go! Come on!”

About half the men had already exited the tent when Polansky spotted the man in the bath towel.

“You got mud in your ears boy? Get dressed!”

“No, I’m--We’re not--” The man sounds deeply confused, and the woman behind him is silent in his shadow.

“War’s not going to wait for you to get pretty! Katz! Get these two operational. And get that one a pair of pants! Let’s go!”

Dave grabbed a pair of Sammy’s trousers from the end of his bunk. Sammy was dead, it wasn’t like he’d miss them and he and the man were similar in build. Once handed the pants the man immediately stood to put them on despite looking more confused than Dave had felt when shown trigonometry for the first time.

“Do you think I have time to waste? Get him a gun! Don’t look at me, get those pants on!”

Williamson came by and placed a helmet onto the new guy’s head and patted it gently before handing the woman one too along with a flak vest.

In the commotion that followed Dave lost track of the two people who had appeared from the flash of blue lightning until they were on the transport bus. They’d both managed to scrounge up pieces of uniforms and blended in with the the other soldiers. They were huddled together on the same seat, the man sitting ramrod straight and tense as a board and the woman was leaning close to whisper into his ear. She was too quiet to hear from where Dave was sitting but whatever she asked the man shook his head tightly. They both looked scared and confused and it was then that Dave realized he wanted to get to know them, these people who had fallen from a flash of blue light.

“You just get in country?” He asked once he’d maneuvered up a few rows.

They both looked startled by the question, the woman jerked her head around and stared with wide eyes but the man looked at him and smiled.

“Oh, uh...yeah,” he sounded almost embarrassed but good natured about it. Suddenly all three of them were chuckling even though nothing about this situation was the least bit funny.

“Yeah, shit’s crazy. I know.”

“Yeah!”

“ _No shit._ ”

All things considered, they seemed to be handling this very well.

“You’ll adjust,” Dave said as he offered his hand to the man in front of him. “I’m Dave.”

The man took it looking surprised but happy. “Klaus. This is Van--”

“Vaughn,” The tiny woman interrupted immediately. “I’m Vaughn.”

Well if that’s what she was going with Dave wasn’t going to ask uncomfortable questions. He had a feeling most questions people would have for her and Klaus, questions such as how did you get here, where are your dog tags, etc would have tricky answers like ‘We fell out of a portal next to Katz’s cot’ which was a less than ideal answer to give the US Army.

Van looked rather relieved that Dave wasn’t asking any questions and pulled herself upright her left hand clutching her rifle so tightly her knuckles were white but when she spoke her voice was surprisingly steady.

“Where are we headed to... exactly?”

“Word from up top is that we’re headed to Hue, probably to the New City but we’ll know more when we get closer. Seems like the whole country exploded overnight, Westmoreland kept saying it was going to be a big show at Khe Sanh, but from the sound of it every major city or base in country seems to be under attack.”

“Oh?” Klaus looked at him with wide eyes. “”That’s really... interesting. Dave, do you mind us asking the date? We’ve had a very hectic few days and we’re all out of sorts.”

Dave shrugged easily, “Sure thing. It’s uh, January thirty-first. Just past sunrise, if that makes a difference.”

“I guess not, thanks Dave,” Klaus looked at him with such lightness about him that it made Dave smile involuntarily. He headed back to his seat, they had a few more hours to go before they’d even get close to Hue, he’d be able to keep close to them once they got there.

**Vanya**

Vanya Hargreeves was trying very hard not to be sick. She felt like a wad of cotton had been shoved up her nose and through her brain and her entire body was as itchy as if she’d rolled naked through a thicket of poison ivy, her anxiety medicine had worn off hours ago in the middle of her torture session with the masked lunatics, and oh yeah, she was currently on an army transport bus in Vietnam during a war that had ended decades before she was born. The entire situation was less than optimal.

Forcing herself to take a deep breath through her nose and trying not to vomit as she considered the situation again. Admittedly it was pretty grim, but there were some things going for her; she wasn’t alone, Klaus was with her. He might be as scared and confused as she was, but at least he would help her if everything went sideways. The briefcase that had landed them here was tucked under her feet and while she wasn’t sure exactly how it worked yet she was sure that between her and Klaus they could figure it out eventually. This Dave guy was the only one who had really noticed them so far and he was busy making heart eyes at Klaus which was...concerning to say the least.

Also concerning, the date; if it really _was_ January 31st and they had time traveled to the Vietnam war she had a really bad feeling about which January 31st they had landed in. Also the last thing they needed was someone noticing they weren’t supposed to be here. In the middle of the Cold War having German and Russian sounding names was probably...bad. Yeah.

“Klaus,” careful to keep her voice low enough not to be overheard, “Do you remember our history lesson we had after the museum robbery?”

Klaus looked rather startled by her question.

“No?”

Vanya closed her eyes in frustration.

“January 31st is the start of Tet. It's a Vietnamese holiday, in 1968 it was the start of a military campaign by the North Vietnamese army against American military outposts and the South Vietnamese government. It was incredibly violent, went on for weeks, was happening all over the country and the absolute worst of the fighting happened in the old imperial capital of Hue.”

Klaus just blinked.

“Where we are headed. Right now.”

Blink.

“While we are both going through withdrawal. We are headed into battle. Were there will be angry dead people for you, and explosions to set off my anxiety.”

“Oh, ooooh... yeah, we’re fucked. Do you remember how to load a rifle? Cause I haven't done it in like fifteen years.”

Vanya could have screamed but settled for hissing under her breath instead.

“Rifle? Forget the rifle! Are you serious Klaus?! We need to figure out how to work that briefcase and get home. We can’t stay here! Our family is in danger from Hazel and Cha-Cha, he don’t know where Five is, we don’t even know if Diego and his cop friend got out okay.”

“We have no idea how the briefcase works V, what if next time we open it we end up somewhere worse?”

“What could be worse than Vietnam in the 60’s?!”

“Occupied Europe in the 40’s?” It was an unfortunately good point so Klaus kept going, “A witch hunt in medieval times? The conquest of Rome? History kind of sucks Vanya.”

She jerked forward to smack his arm and hissed under her breath, “Don’t call me that! It's the middle of the Cold War! Just...just call me Van okay?”

“Right, okay. I can totally do that.”

_Maybe._

**Klaus**

Klaus Hargreeves was trying not to have a complete mental breakdown. In just under twenty-four hours he and Vanya had been kidnapped, held hostage, and tortured for hours and as soon as they’d jumped out of the frying pan, they’d landed in the fire. If his sister was right, and he had a terrible feeling that she was, then they were being shuttled to some of the worst fighting of one of the bloodiest conflicts of the twentieth century and they were both decades removed from their last firearms training and currently going through withdrawal so…this was bad. Yay!

Almost as bad as the aforementioned combat, for Klaus at least, was that the bus was crowded with ghosts. Dead Americans in military gear with missing limbs and gaping wounds, Vietnamese civilians riddled with bullet holes, people so disfigured by burns that sex and race couldn’t be determined. It was horrifying.

Moving carefully so as not to attract attention from the soldiers nearest them Klaus reached under the seat to turn the briefcase buckle side up to get a closer look at the device that brought them here. At first glance there were combination locks on either side of the handle but there were symbols mixed in with the numbers, and more numbers than a combination lock could actually physically hold. How the fuck did this thing work?

“How the fuck does this thing work?”

Vanya looked at him from under the rim of her helmet.

“Maybe one dial controls the where and the other the when of the traveling? It doesn’t look like coordinates, at least not coordinates I’m familiar with.” She sighed deeply and continued. “It’s probably a code, and I should be able to break it but I’ll need time. Five was always faster at this stuff than I was.”

Klaus twisted in his seat to look at her. “You know how to break codes?”

Vanya shrugged. “Five said it was something I could learn to do; I didn’t need powers to use my brain. Math isn’t dissimilar to music; it was…nice to do something with Five.”

Huh. That’s…not what Klaus had expected. In his admittedly blurry childhood memories Five was brash and arrogant and impatient, and Vanya was boring, and dull, and uninteresting. It was hard to picture them together in the library learning code breaking, not because anyone had forced them to, but because they wanted to be around each other. Klaus was also a tiny bit ashamed to admit that he hadn’t every really thought about Vanya having any really skills outside of playing the violin.

“You didn’t put that in your book,” Klaus said instead, and okay maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say because Vanya flinched and looked away.

“No, I…” Vanya paused and licked her lips and then it was a dam inside her burst, “It felt too sad to talk about how badly I wanted to be part of the Academy. How deeply I wanted to be useful to you all on missions that I learned everything I could think of to help behind the scenes, and that after Five disappeared I knew it would never actually happen. Five would spend time with me when dad wasn’t there to stop it, but the rest of you would barely even _look_ at me, I just wasn’t enough for you all. And that wasn’t something I wanted to share with the world, I wasn’t enough for dad but that was different; he was impossible to please, not being enough for my siblings hurt a lot worse than being a wasted investment of Reginald’s.”

Klaus blinked in surprise. Vanya actually sounded…angry, resentful even. When he’d read her book seven years ago he hadn’t thought she’d been holding anything back, at least nothing that would show her in a more sympathetic light. Well if she could be honest with him…

“I was jealous of you, you know, ever since that thing with the Eiffel Tower. I thought the attention we got after the missions would make up for it but, they were awful V. The ghosts were bad enough, but Ben was always so depressed afterwards, and no matter what we did it was never good enough for dad. And I was forced to go on missions even though talking to dead people isn’t really that helpful in most situations and you… you got to play the violin. “

Vanya’s lips pressed into a thin line and she looked around before leaning in to hiss in his ear. “My entire childhood was set to the soundtrack of ‘Get out Vanya!’ ‘Go away!’ and you were jealous of me?”

“Well, yeah! You got to be a kid! The rest of us were prize pets he liked to show off; you could do whatever you wanted.”

Klaus was growing more confused the angrier Vanya seemed to become. Didn’t she know how lucky she was to be normal? No powers to worry about ruining her life, what bliss.

“You think that because I didn’t have powers dad went easy on me? I have been left out of everything for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the same house but I was always made to feel like an outsider and all of you refuse to acknowledge it!”

 _Oh, so this was_ **_his_ ** _fault now?!_

“Well wish fucking granted V! You’re along for the ride now! How do you like it so far?”

Vanya’s lip curled into a snarl and she snatched the briefcase away from him to examine it more closely.

“Hardly counts though, does it?” She muttered darkly. “Hazel and Cha-Cha included me more than you all did.”

Klaus flinched at that and all of a sudden Vanya seemed to deflate. “That wasn’t fair, sorry. I...I just, I was just so lonely all the time, and yeah the pressure sucked but at least you all had each other.”

And just like that his anger ebbed, it was still there but it had sunk enough to remind him that Vanya wasn’t the cause of his pain, not really, merely the most convenient target he had for it at the moment.

“I’m not sure we really did actually.”

He watched her as she studiously ignored him and focused on the dials of the briefcase.

“You were kind of right, you know? What you wrote about us being strangers in the same house. We did kind of become that way, especially when we got older. And I...I guess it just didn’t occur to me to include you. I...I’m sorry V.”

Moving slowly so he could see it coming and move away if he wanted to, she took his hand in her own, lacing their fingers together.

“I’m sorry too Klaus.”

There was nothing else to say so they sat in silence as the transport rattled along the bumpy highway to Hue and the fighting that waited for them there.


	6. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four and Seven have time traveled into the past. What are the others getting up to in the meantime?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT!!!!! PLEASE READ THE NOTES!!!! THIS IS NOT THE END! IT IS ONLY THE BEGINNING!  
> So after much deliberating I have decided to restructure my story and split it into three arcs. Also I might change the title of the first one, I haven't decided yet. The first arc contains the changes made before Klaus and Vanya time traveled. The second one will be what they do while they are in the past, and the third will be what happens when they get back. Got it? Good.  
> On a more personal note the next two weeks are going to be absolutely insane for me. Without giving too many details away I work in the tourism industry where I live and this is the busiest time in our year. There will be no real time to write so my next installment might take a while, so in the meantime have this short piece I originally wrote to bridge the gap between the second and third arcs but I think fits better here.

**The Handler**

The Handler (former inmate of a facility for the criminally insane, poor judge of character, middle management personified) sat her office in Commission Headquarters, staring at various timeline reports and tried to figure out how, exactly, the apocalypse was being derailed. 

Reports confirmed Number Five hadn’t been anywhere near Harold Jenkins or Vanya Hargreeves as far as anyone could tell, but for some reason no one in her agency could fathom, Vanya had never gone to see Jenkins. Jenkins was doing as he should; studying Reginald’s journal, stealing Vanya’s medicine, leaving her flowers and sweet words to make her trust him. It was Vanya who wasn’t acting according to script.

As soon as she’d heard that The Handler had another agent discreetly dispatched to find out why Vanya was keeping her distance, and the agent had reported that Vanya Hargreeves was nowhere to be found.

Jenkins was the lit match to Vanya’s bomb and he had to be close to the bomb to set it off. The Handler sighed deeply; she had to get this straightened out if she was ever going to get the apocalypse back on schedule.

**One, Two, Three, Five**

Diego was really getting sick of his siblings breaking into his apartment. Correction: Diego was sick of Luther breaking into his apartment. He had hoped that Vanya and Klaus would have made their way to his place in the time it took Eudora to swing by the station to explain the shootout at the motel (editing the part where Diego had been with her-”No no officer, I was in the car the whole time”) and putting out a BOLO for the crazies in the masks.

The only bright side to Luther being camped out in Diego’s apartment, again, was that Allison and Five were with him this time. Sure Allison looked stressed eight ways to hell and gone and Five was passed out on the bed, but they were both an improvement over Luther’s hulking form and imperious tone.

“So you and Patch were able to get Klaus and Vanya out of the motel okay, but got split up after that and you haven’t seen them since last night?” 

Allison was silent, staring off into space without looking at any of them. She looked tired and drawn and had started chewing on her lower lip, a nervous tick he hadn’t seen her fall into since they were children.

“Close to midnight. They were both barefoot and Klaus was in a towel but Vanya was dressed at least and she knows my address so I was really hoping they’d come here.”

Diego was flipping a knife between his fingers as he paced his apartment, stopping when he got close to the bed where Five was still curled up fast asleep.

“Funny. If I didn't know he was such a prick, I’d say he looks almost adorable in his sleep.”

“He passed out after drinking at least one bottle of vodka and then trying to jump to save Vanya and Klaus when we told him they’d been kidnapped by Hazel and Cha-Cha,” Allison spoke in a flat monotone from her hunched over perch on Diego’s favorite chair, her head in her hands.

“Their names are Hazel and what now?”

“Cha-Cha. Her name is Cha-Cha.”

Five Hargreeves was finally awake, and judging by the way he was attempting to get vertical he was apparently diving into the day head first.

“Hazel and Cha-Cha are two of the best assassins employed by the Time Commission, and they kidnapped Vanya and Klaus to get information on me because they were sent to kill me. They’ll be staying at a motor lodge or motel, somewhere low profile. If we can figure out where they’re staying we should be able to plan an offensive to get Vanya and Klaus out--”

“Slow down there a minute Five. Eudora and I found them last night.”

Five looked murderous.

“And you’re just telling me this now?! Where’s Vanya now?”

“Things went a little sideways but Klaus and Vanya made it out okay as far as I know. I thought they might be heading here actually. Do you want to explain why those psychos are trying to kill you? Since apparently they are willing to kidnap the rest of us to get to you, I think we might be entitled to an explanation.”

Five scoffed and finally managed to get himself into a sitting position. “An explanation? How’s this for an explanation Diego? The Apocalypse is happening in four days and I have no idea how to stop it. That enough of an explanation for you?”

Luther, Allison, and Diego stared at him open mouthed for a moment before they all began talking at once.


End file.
